08 DEC 08

It’s definitely the rainy season!

The waters of the oxbow lake are not much more than ten metres from the main building now and the trails are un-walkable (although I did consider making some stilts…). However, the animals seem to be visiting much more frequently at the moment. I supose that has something to do with there being less land to work with. In the last two days I’ve seen: two orangutans, billions of macaques, wild boar, more lizards than I can count, a giant squirrel, a big black squirrel (possibly a Prevost’s squirrel for those of you who are squirrel enthusiasts, although I wouldn’t quote me on it), a pigmy tree squirrel, a civet in a tree and a bird of prey which I almost stood on as it seemed to think that the ground was a suitable place to sit. I tried to explain to it that if it didn’t start being a bit more sensible then it’d be taken out by natural selection, but it flew off before I could finish.

The two orangutans, as you can imagine, caused considerable excitement. Unfortunately Chloe wasn’t feeling very well when I first saw them (they were near the centre for two days), so I took my notepad and camera and set off to make observations every few minutes in an attempt to improve my recording skills. This was working marvellously until I spotted the second orangutan, who only co-operated for a short while before taking off in a different direction. Not wanting to lose either, I resolved to switch between the two, taking observations from one every three minutes and another minute later for the other orangutan. Of course this ended in disaster with me losing both orangutans, after tiring and confusing myself by running through the jungle over an increasing distance, as they moved further apart. The next day they were spotted after lunch and I decided not to take observations like before but just to note down interesting behaviours and to follow only one. By this time they’d acquired the names ‘Lisa’ and ‘Sheldon’, and I chose to follow Lisa as she seemed the friendlier of the two. For those of you who know their human name-sakes, Lisa had long straight hair like, well, Lisa! As for Sheldon, there are the obvious links with Monkey World…That afternoon gave me my most incredible orangutan experience to date, with Lisa turning out to be incredibly un-bothered by my presence. With patience enough to ignore the mosquitoes and a few adaptations of my own behaviour to mimic hers, I managed to spend nearly three hours with her. At first I kept my distance, watching her snack away at the fruits and leaves near the water’s edge, but it wasn’t long before I didn’t have to worry. She descended until she was only a few metres from the ground and moved to a tree closer to my sitting position. I kept as still as I could, considering the incessant ‘neeeee’ noise of the mossies around my head, and picked off leaves from the nearby trees, fiddling with them like she did. When she moved, I waited until there was enough space between us and followed quietly. She was aware of my presence, as she shot curious glances in my direction every now and again, but carried on with all the usual orangutan-type activities. At one point she came right down to the ground to cross to a sturdier looking tree, before climbing back up again to continue her afternoon feast. We parted as night started to fall and I left her to make a nest for the night. Sometimes if orangutans are disturbed it affects their nesting habits, and although she didn’t seem to worry about me being there, I didn’t want her to end up without a bed on my account.

I popped back to see Sheldon by the jetty afterwards, but he just grunted at me and carried on his previous activity which appeared to be staring at a tree trunk. An angry looking macaque then presented himself on the path in front of me and bared his teeth, so I decided to make a careful retreat back to the field centre. The macaques are generally alright and only cause trouble if you’ve left food around, but there seems to be a particularly ‘difficult’ group around at the moment! The Monkey Mafia are still raiding Zainal’s house and aren’t in the least bit concerned when you try to shoo them out. I’d happily bet that this brave little character looking for a fight was one of these, but I suppose you get ‘chavs’ everywhere these days. (Interesting note, the spell-check on this computer just automatically changed the word ‘chavs’ to ‘chives’!)

Anyway, Chloe’s taken to baking cakes in the jungle and I’m currently missing out by writing this to send in town tomorrow, so I’ll bid you goodnight and write soon!

Love from Rachel x